Small Business Tax Preparation and Help with Self Employed Taxes

Small-business taxes can be overwhelming, especially if you’re new to running a business, but don’t fork over your hard-earned cash on a bookkeeper or accountant just yet. You can do your own small-business taxes fairly easily with these tips.

1. Keep your tax records and payments up to date

With a business credit card in your wallet and online accounting software at your fingertips, this last tip will be easy. Outright is especially helpful at keeping you up to date because it does the bookkeeping for you.

Outright keeps you on top of taxes by:

Organizing your records by sorting income from expenses and categorizing transactions in the way the IRS expects.

Helping with tax payments by giving you accurate quarterly tax estimates and notifying you before payments are due.

2. Use accounting and tax prep software

Technology is a powerful tool that can save you countless accounting hours and make taxes significantly easier. Bookkeeping, payroll, inventory, estimated quarterly payments—all of these aspects of your business play a part in your tax return.

Here are three web-based software recommendations to make accounting tasks easier.

Other online accounting software, like Harvest and FreshBooks, automatically integrates with Outright. This works well if your small business needs a more full-scale accounting solution that includes features like invoicing and time-tracking.

Tax prep software from companies like H&R Block offer online software that guides you through your tax return step by step. It’s easy to use and excellent at finding expenses you may have overlooked so you can get the maximum deduction possible.

3. Apply for a business credit card

Dedicating a credit card specifically for business expenses is a great way to simplify your accounting. It eliminates the time-consuming task of sorting business expenses from personal ones and makes it easier to see where your money is going. Taxes are a lot less painful when all of your business transactions are consolidated.

Outright will automatically consolidate your business credit card account with any other financial accounts, including PayPal and eBay. You can see all of your accounts in one place, and Outright will have instantly organized your transactions for you.